twenty-three

About 3 weeks ago, we had our first congregational summit at First Presbyterian Church, part of an ongoing vision process for the church. I wrote about it, about how encouraging it was for me as a staff member and as a newly-involved member of the congregation as a whole. This Saturday, we had the 2nd of the summit meetings and began to move forward with how the good ideas everyone brought to the table could be concentrated into some real points of action as we move forward.

This Saturday’s summit focused on discernment, engaging the ideas brought together by the congregation with where God is leading our community. Here I experience some more of the order of our church and denomination, with a set procedure and purpose to the working out of the actions we’ll take together. We asked "What does Jesus want us to do as a church?", moving beyond our own opinions or bias and attempting to discern our calling together in Christ. We also asked the question "What is God doing globally that we can join into?", trying to be in touch with God’s larger movements in our city, our state, our world, and being willing to take part in those actions.

Through a very interesting process of conversation, clarification of our focus areas, and prayerful discernment, we all chose the top 3 areas (of about 22) that we felt we should act in over the next 5 years. The priorities for the next 5 years are as follows: Discipleship, Local Outreach, Facilities, Stewardship, Small Groups, Children, and Youth. These categories were then talked out more and we began to shape some sort of vision for these areas in concrete action items. As we are Presby(-terian), these are only potential action items and our Session will have to discuss and approve our actions and the ways these areas are worked on over the next 5 years.

Pastor Doug noted that our top choices, Discipleship and Local Outreach, reflect both an inward focus on nurturing the spiritual lives of people within the church, and an outward response to the needs of our community. This is a crucial point for us, because we are acknowledging the need to direct and grow as a community on the inside, but we are also looking beyond ourselves and seeing a need for action. Our discussions focused a lot on how our discipleship will action influence our outward action. One helps the other.

All in all, I was very encouraged to be a part of this process with other members of our church. I’m excited for the future of FPC and the direction God is leading us and moving us as we grow and develop over the next 5 years and beyond. Being one of the youngest participants, I also felt a greater tie to the larger community of the church, beyond just my peers, but really connected with the people who have been involved for years and have made significant commitments to shaping this community over the long run. I hope I can be like that some day, some one who has remained faithful to a group of people and care for a community over the long haul.

Leave a Reply